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Game-Mechanics: Urban Sprawl

Coobico's main USP is to offer true multiplayer-citybuilding, where settlements are not instanced.

Coobico’s main USP is to offer true multiplayer-citybuilding, where settlements are not instanced (something that rarely has been done yet, no?), which poses the challenge of settlements rampantly growing. The game therefore offers two strong incentives to counter urban sprawl: first, we lately threw a settlers’ need for community into the mix—townies will get unhappy if their next neighbors are settled too far away (remember to keep your villagers happy to keep them from leaving your city). What’s more, we gave the mechanism of initial building-costs a slight nudge—up until now construction costs would depend on a land-value which was calculated according to the specific location of a new construction-site. However, this game-mechanism was prone cheating (if such land-value is transfered between server and client). It’s now put on the scrap heap and replaced with a dynamic cost which depends on the distance of a new building from your initial town-hall. This will encourage a tighter and more circular layout of settlements, while still allowing for more peculiar and outstretched types of villages (which are just going to be a slightly bit more expensive).

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